Gun-walking conspiracy theory off base

In stunning legal developments recently in Washington, one of them was a clunker:

The Justice Department, with the sober concurrence of the White House, announced it would not criminally prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder following a contempt-of-Congress citation passed by the House.

So - the Justice Department will not try to throw the boss in jail.

Meanwhile, Holder continues to resist congressional efforts to unearth documents that investigators deem relevant to the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, which is tied to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

He is aided and abetted by President Barack Obama, who inexplicably has asserted executive privilege over the material Congress seeks.

Holder's literal contempt for Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee has evolved over the 18 months of this investigation, from bemused indifference to an unprecedented display of incomprehensible intransigence. It is beginning to seem plausible that the man is resisting a reasonable compromise with Issa purely out of pique.

Unlikely? Not when one considers the growing body of evidence that the "operation" Holder so consistently has stonewalled may not have been an intentional "gun-walking" operation after all. Indeed, it may not even have been an "operation" in the sense that its mission was anything more than a traditionally defined (if hapless and overwhelmed) effort by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to interdict rampant gun-running in Arizona, the state with perhaps the most liberal gun laws in America.

A recent Fortune magazine investigation into Fast and Furious concludes:

ATF agents never intentionally allowed guns to "walk" into Mexico.

Arizona gun laws designed to protect gun buyers (including buyers of multiple weapons) from government scrutiny defeated their effort to build cases.

At least one of the fundamental accusations of gun walking leveled by Issa's committee appears to involve a rogue operation initiated by one of the principal whistle-blowers in the case.

The Fortune story is far from complete. It tells the story mostly from the perspective of Dave Voth, an ATF team leader who was savaged (often in personal terms) by whistle-blower John Dodson.

But it illustrates that one of the so-called "gun walking" incidents first cited in March 2011 by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, does not appear to have been a part of any Fast and Furious operation. Rather, the incident that so aroused Grassley's ire appears to have been an independent (and botched) sting conducted by the whistle-blower himself, Dodson.

The story outlines the chain of events leading to the weapons found at the site of agent Terry's murder, suggesting that it may have been the result of slow-footedness by a U.S. prosecutor. But no one appears to have intentionally let the weapons "walk" from the Glendale gun store where they were purchased.

The Fortune story is far from the only independent investigation beginning, finally, to frame Fast and Furious events. There is little if any hard evidence that it was an operation designed to intentionally allow guns to cross into Mexico.

That hasn't stopped members of Issa's committee - including Issa - from irresponsibly running with conspiracy theories that the "operation" was designed to bring public pressure to restrict gun rights.

Even conservative commentators are demanding Issa and Co. stop with the reckless conspiracy mongering. Wrote National Review Deputy Managing Editor Robert VerBruggen recently:

"It's hard to see why the gun-control-conspiracy explanation is more believable than the botched-sting-operation one."

The ultimate answer likely lies in the documents Holder refuses to share with Issa.

The House had little choice but to find our country's contemptuous attorney general in contempt of Congress. But it looks like it may be genuine contempt for congressional Republicans behind Holder's lack of cooperation, not some grand conspiracy.